Your grace, I’d like to ask your opinion on “Coriolanus”. It’s one of the plays I’ve never really enjoyed and I’m looking for a new perspective, if you would, please.

dukeofbookingham:

Coriolanus is weird. We don’t have a whole lot of strong reason to like/root for the title character. It’s sort of a slow burn of a play, where with every scene you’re just sitting there going, “There is no way this is going to end well,” and naturally, it doesn’t. Honestly the most interesting thing about Coriolanus (sometimes fondly referred to as Coriogaynus in the Shakespeare fandom) is the bizarre relationship between the title character and the nominal villain, Aufidius. They have this deeply strange, honor-bound, ill-fated, antagonistic relationship which is also the most overtly homoerotic one in the entire Shakespearean canon. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the following speech, after Aufidius unexpectedly finds his ‘enemy’ Coriolanus on his doorstep:

O Coriolanus, Coriolanus!
Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
And say ‘Tis true,’ I’ld not believe them more
Than thee, all noble Coriolanus. Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
And scarr’d the moon with splinters: here I clip
The anvil of my sword, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sigh’d truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,
We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
Or lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters ‘twixt thyself and me;
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat,
And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Coriolanus,
Had we no quarrel else to Rome, but that
Thou art thence banish’d, we would muster all
From twelve to seventy, and pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o’er-bear. O, come, go in,
And take our friendly senators by the hands;
Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,
Who am prepared against your territories,
Though not for Rome itself.

Maybe it’s just me, but that’s pretty fucking fascinating.